If you’re in this business and you are scared, then you better do something else.

When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

All you have in business is your reputation – so it’s very important that you keep your word.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

If I can be a leader, I will.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

I always have to be writing.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

Someone told me something that stuck with me: ‚You have to envision your life, and then go backwards.‘ I’ve been living by that motto for a while, so I see where I need to be. Now I’m just backtracking and trying to get back up there.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

Competition gives me energy. It keeps me focused.

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

While still working for others, your goal at some point must be to carve out little areas that you can operate on your own, cultivating entrepreneurial skills.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

It’s disgusting, but my father taught me when your mouth gets dry, just suck the sweat out of your own jersey. There’s no bravado to any of it; it’s just a disgusting little trick.

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

I’m interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.

I teach children to be winners.

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.

No great intellectual thing was ever done by great effort.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me – I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

I’m kind of claustrophobic… It’s not even like enclosed spaces. It’s like I hate being stuck in one band, you know? Just being stuck is the biggest drag, for fear that, you know, just that you can’t get out.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.